Agamas and Tirumandiram
The canonical scripture which removes the 3 impurities of Anava, Kanman and Maya is called as Agamas. The liberation of the souls from the suffering and bestowing eternal bliss is called agama. One should not be sad that only 9 of the 28 agamas have been retrieved. Because it is not 28 different chapters but rather the same principles explained in different ways in the 28 agamas. Hence, the message of the 28 agamas is present in the 9 agamas and Tirumoolar has condensed them into Tirumandiram for our benefit.
The thread with 3000 fibers
Mandiram is called a thread because just as multiple fibers are weaved to form a thread, 3000 mandirams are weaved together to form Tirumandiram. Why should one read this? will they give us any benefit in life or free us from our sufferings? All things that we do in life are towards a purpose. Anything thought or word or action done without a purpose is considered useless as per our saints. We spend most of the time at least thinking of harm to others or other useless things. We think that no harm befalls from thinking harm to others. But we must remember that “every action has an equal and opposite reaction” and this applies to thoughts as well. This has been told by our saints long before Newton, but we prefer to hear it from foreigners who have just scratched the surface of science.
When one spends time in learning, listening, and thinking about canonical scriptures like Tirumandiram, one’s conscience and actions are being cleansed.
Tirumandiram as the 10th scripture
Tirumandiram is the 10th of the 12 Tirumurais. We all know the history of Tirumoolar. For him to transmute into the body of the cowherd, the cowherd must have had certain qualities. We take care of our own homes but care less about other’s homes. The cowherd was taking care of not only his cows but also other’s cows. Even more, he took care of them with love and compassion even though they were animals incapable of expressing themselves. That alone was qualification enough for Tirumoolar to transmute into moolan’s body. Tirumandiram was spoken by the soul and not the cowherd’s body. Like a speaker speaking through a microphone, the body is just a tool for the soul. Ya in Nama Sivaya is the representation of the soul. As per tamil lexical ordering, Ya is the 10th alphabet hence Tirumandiram was placed as the 10th scripture to show that the soul was the responsible for Tirumandiram.
Yogam in Tirumandiram
For many people, messages must be told on the run since most of us are hard pressed for time. Tirumoolar explains clearly who Siddhars are and explains the difference between the Avasiddhars and Sivasiddhars. Without Tirumandiram, it would have been impossible to understand the Yogam state. There are many scriptures that explain Sariyai and kriyai, but the qualifications of yogam, what it is, what is the end state of yogam, what are the yogam done these days etc. are clearly explained only in Tirumandiram. Even souls in mixed state with God, sometimes must stay in their physical body until their tasks are completed.
The 3000-year penance
How did Tirumoolar write these 3000 verses? Did he write it down himself or did his disciples write it down as he spoke? St. Sekkizhar says that Tirumoolar sang one verse per year. That gives us 3000 years for 3000 verses, meaning he lived for 3000 years. Now our question is that when so many life forms were to benefit from these, he should have done it faster than 3000 years for it to be useful? The person who saw the first verse would not have even seen the 100th verse, forget the 3000th verse.
One year is 365 days. 1 day is one morning and one night. Tirumoolar says he lived for hundreds of thousands of years. He also says that he lived in a place where there was no day and night. Then what calculation can be used to fathom that he wrote 1 song every year? We already have spoken about how Tirumoolar transmutes into the body of dead cowherd and guides the grieving cows to their homes. We also spoke about how he returns to find his original body missing and takes it as the act of thiruvarul of Siva and goes to the Thiruavaduthurai temple and prays to the temple deity. He then goes to the Arasu (Sthala vriksha) tree and sits in the specific yogic pose which roughly translates to sitting like a monkey on its coiled tail. The actual meaning of this pose means sitting in yoga. But there would have been no songs if Tirumoolar has sat in yoga for eternity, So Siva Peruman moves him from his meditative state to the worldly state once a year, at the end of which a song comes out. In the yogic state, time ceases to exist as the Atma transcends time and the body remains in a state of suspended animation. The kundalini rises through the base chakra to the chakra between the eyebrows. When it reaches this chakra, a drop of nectar of bliss drips onto the atma and the realization of truth occurs. The verses in Tirumandiram are such drops of blissful nectar.
Understanding the significance of this act
A saint is not involved in the worldly affairs in his meditative or yogic state. Only when he returns to the worldly state, does the world profit from his experiences. Saint Manickavasagar did not give us the Thiruvasagam when he was in a state of bliss with Siva, but sang the heart moving verses of Thiruvasagam when released intermittently from the state of bliss by Siva Peruman Himself. Saint Manickavasagar himself sings that the verses of Thiruvasagam were like water that one drinks to subside the hiccups of separation from Siva Peruman.
A siddhar is one who gets the dharisanam(bliss) of Siva Logam wherever he is, without actually going anywhere.
Similarly, Tirumoolar also wrote his verses only when Siva Peruman released him intermittently from his yogic state into the worldly affairs. We are joyous and profit only when a saint involves himself in the worldly affairs just as dark clouds bring the life-giving rain. If the dark clouds keep on moving without stopping to give us rain, only drought will ensue.
Karma and body
A person living in the plains should build houses suited for the plains just as a person living in the mountains builds houses suited for that environment. Similarly, the body is given depending on the different planes or dimensions of existence. Let us look at the concept of heaven and hell. Let us say a person accumulates lots of karma in the current birth such that there is so much karmic backlog. When there is a lot of negative karma, all the karmic cases are dealt in one go and hence the concept of hell to clean up the backlog and vice versa for good karma. Else there is no way that the backlog will ever be dealt for the benefit of the person to attain the Holy feet of the Lord. We keep on accumulating new karma in every birth and as long as there’s karmic balance in one’s account, the cycle of birth and death occurs like clockwork. Whether one believes in karma or not, is immaterial to karma itself. The sun does not stop shining because one believes that the earth is the center of the universe. Cause and effect are universal and is beyond the capabilities of understanding using the physical body and senses. But how does karma attach itself to the correct atma as karma is itself not an intelligent or sentient being ? does the entire karmic balance attach itself in one go or in multiple births ? these questions have been touched upon in the previous essays and will be revisited in the upcoming posts based on the topics.
One who detaches oneself from a worldly thought or thing, also removes oneself from the suffering that accompanies it.
Guru matters
Until the atma matures, the mantra is Nama Sivaya. Once the atma matures, it becomes Sivaya Nama. What then about Sivaya Siva? That mantra is said at the astral body level and is beyond the physical realm. Lord Dakshinamurthy seems to be sitting with eyes closed but when one sits down and looks up at Him, one can clearly notice that His eyes are looking down to us. He transmitted the divine wisdom of the Vedas and agamas to the 7 saints without even uttering a single word. A disciple gets good wisdom based on his guru. A goat teaches its kid to chew small leaves whereas an elephant teaches its kid to break down the entire stems. Similarly, Tirumoolar is like an elephant teaching us the divine wisdom of the agamas through Tirumandiram.
Even when one performs penance like a mountain, if one cannot overcome the sense of taste then that penance is like tamarind paste in a fast-flowing river.
Vallalar Adigal
Putting one’s faith in the Lord.
Why do we need magic or sorcery? All we need is liberation from the cycle of life and death and hence from suffering. If only really desires everlasting bliss, then find the one that can not only liberate from this cycle of life and death but also give everlasting bliss. The Lord is bliss personified for those who suffer. He will come if you talk to Him. There is no need to be suspicious because He is everywhere, and He listens to those who talk to Him. We are ready to trust our lives to drivers or pilots etc. but ask a thousand questions to trust our lives to The Lord Himself. This hypocrisy is glaring and beggars belief for those with even an iota of common sense and can be simply be attributed to ignorance.
We have taken a million births and still cannot overcome even one tatuvam. And we have a million more.
Character, action, and judgement
We judge people by their actions. Those who do good actions are good people and those who do bad actions are bad people. The other way is to judge the action by the person doing it. Vaali the monkey king, keeps asking a thousand questions to Lord Rama while his brother Lakshmanan was standing beside him. Vaali was the one who coveted the wife of his brother and hence a war ensued between the vanara clans. After a lot of discussion, vaali finally concedes to the fact that since it was Lord Rama who came to solve the issue, the action is dharmic. The action of Lord Rama here is judged to be dharmic simply because Lord Rama himself is dharmic. Similarly, when St. Manickavasagar sings that Lord Siva will come to listen to us, then the words of St. Manickavasagar is true simply because St. Manickavasagar himself is truth.
The daily practice
Our senses are made from maya. Only when one transcends the maya, karma and anavam can be removed. But once we transcend the Maya, Siva Himself helps us to overcome the Karma and anavam. Why does one need to practice every day to sublimate the senses? It is like rifle training. One practices every day to shoot at target practice. The real purpose of the target practice is to fight against adversaries and protect the borders. Similarly, the target is maya and we practice hitting it and sublimate the senses, daily. But the real adversary is anavam for which we prepare every day. The overcoming of the 36 tatuvams is like climbing a ladder which has 36 steps and leads to mukthi.
Mukthi is only when one transcends the 36 Tatuvams.